


sanity check

by Mirror_Face



Series: someone’s drowning in the other room [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Akamatsu Kaede-centric, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Character Study, Gen, Trauma, budding friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28992252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirror_Face/pseuds/Mirror_Face
Summary: During something as insanely terrifying as a zombie apocalypse one would think that finding allies would be easy enough for someone as charismatic as Kaede. Well, she couldn’t help but mourn to herself, it seemed like the world just happened to hate her. Because, it just so happened that she was stuck with her universal opposite. A girl named Maki Harukawa.She was the same age as Kaede, 17, with crimson red eyes and unfathomably amazing skills with a gun. And she only spoke in a language mostly made up with glares, eye rolls, and snide, bitter comments that seemed to roll off her tongue oh-so-easily. The kind of person that Kaede couldn’t even properly comprehend.It just so happened that Kaede was absolutely screwed.(but maybe- a far too small voice spoke in the back of her head- if she tried hard enough, it could work out. maybe)
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede & Harukawa Maki
Series: someone’s drowning in the other room [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126796
Kudos: 9





	sanity check

**Author's Note:**

> Could you tell that the summary had to be cut a paragraph for being too long? Yeah, me too.
> 
> Also, the whole zombie apocalypse thing is a total backdrop for these oneshots. It's more of the setting than the plot.

Kaede wasn’t particularly good at many things. She had her talents, of course, but besides ***** she tended to at least struggle when it came to doing certain things. However, she had always taken great pride in her people skills- she was good at helping people open up, talk to them until they were comfortable enough with her that they could easily talk for hours. Kaede was a naturally friendly person. It was just what she did. Talking.

So, during something as insanely terrifying as a zombie apocalypse, one would think that finding allies would be easy enough for someone as charismatic as Kaede. Well, she couldn’t help but mourn to herself, it seemed like the world just happened to hate her. Not only could she not think about the ***** without trembling like crazy, but it just so happened that she was stuck with her universal opposite. A girl named Maki Harukawa.

She was the same age as Kaede, 17, with crimson red eyes and unfathomably amazing skills with a gun. And she only spoke in a language mostly made up with glares, eye rolls, and snide, bitter comments that seemed to roll off her tongue oh-so-easily. The kind of person that Kaede couldn’t even properly comprehend.

Basically, Kaede- still scared of the entire situation, with nothing but the supplies she and her (not)friend were carrying on their backs- was a bit screwed. Not that she let that bring her down. She couldn’t let that happen, it wasn’t in her nature. Definitely not. It was just another one of her few talents- optimism.

Maki didn’t seem to like that about her either. Which kind of sucked. A lot.

But, well, Kaede didn’t mind. Surely there was  _ something _ about her that Maki could tolerate. Although, she’s sure that her companion was more annoyed at her distinct lack of apocalypse-surviving skills. Not everyone had amazing gun skills or mysterious survival skills though- so Kaede couldn’t help but feel that that was an unreasonable expectation.

Anyways, the tension and awkward silences were getting pretty bad. Kaede had half-mind to think that Maki was just waiting for the right opportunity to run and abandon her to the undead (they were one of those quiet, uneasy thoughts- circulating through her head after particularly stressful days as she tried to stop her fingers from tapping on invisible ***** keys). She never did, surprisingly enough, but Kaede really couldn’t take the atmosphere any longer. Not during such a terrible time. It wasn’t the place for such stand-offish behavior.

Nothing ever went through though.

“Hey, Maki,” she’d asked one night, as Maki cleaned out a rifle and Kaede attempted to organize their rations in some abandoned house they’d cleaned out, “how did you get so good with a gun, anyways? You’re around my age, right?”

All she had gotten in response was a curt, “It’s none of your business.” Maki hadn’t even looked at her.

Kaede huffed, pouting a little. “I was just curious. You’re really good at it.”

“I’m glad you think so.” She’d sneered, still not looking up.

“I have a hobby too, or I did, I guess. Although it’s more of a passion. I’m pretty good at…” *****. She had trailed off, mouth open. Hands shaking in a crude mix of both terror and longing.

So she stopped. Maki didn’t say anything.

It had been a stupid idea anyways.

* * *

Home sickness was something that was terribly present in Kaede. A disease that stuck firmly in the back of her mind, a haunting fever that just wouldn’t go away.

Sometimes, home sickness was an okay thing to have, it just meant that you missed what you loved; that was a good thing. However, it was different when the thing that you were missing could never come back. When the people you wanted to see the most were either dead or lost in a dangerous wasteland with no way to contact each other. There was no hope in that.

Honestly, the days where Kaede’s home sickness were the strongest, when she desperately wished that she could just wake up and be in bed or that she would turn around and see Shuichi there, ready to mull over some book he had just finished reading, were just depressing. They were lonely and pitiful. She almost wanted to cry whenever that rush of longing grasped onto her so strongly.

But she couldn’t do that. Not when Maki was there, carving knives out of branches like some kind of survival expert. Her stubborn pride wouldn’t allow it.

Maybe if they’d talked more, she would’ve felt less weird about it. But Kaede already felt like she was being silently judged for everything she did, followed by suspicious red eyes that seemed to dig deep into her soul. She didn’t need Maki to think she was pitiful on top of annoying. One negative adjective was enough, thank you very much.

She wished everyday that everything would just stop and go back. Back to when she was almost out of highschool and had a nice group of friends and a lovely sister whom she loved dearly. She wanted everything to be a dream, the zombies, her survival partener, the world. All of it.

Sometimes, though, past the haze of despair that always seemed to linger around her, Kaede wondered how Maki felt about all of this. Did she have family? Friends? Just because the girl had a standoffish attitude didn’t mean she wasn’t close to anyone before.

She never seemed to show anything past her expression of vague annoyance, molten red eyes dulling with their glares. It made her wonder. It made her wonder a lot.

And, well, it was a month after that disaster of a conversation when Kaede finally got what she’d wanted.

They had been camping outside (something they rarely did for obvious safety reasons). Maki was on watch for the night, head resting against the sloping ground of the small hill they were resting on. Kaede simply couldn’t sleep, uncomfortable in the night’s coldness. It was dark, and Kaede couldn’t hear anything but dirt shuffling under her feet from the spot she was sitting on, close enough to Maki to feel safe (but also far enough to not feel uncomfortable).

The silence was broken, surprisingly, by Maki of all people- her voice both grounded and ruminating in the way that Kaede had grown used to, “The stars are nice tonight.”

“Huh?” Kaede perked her head up.

“Nevermind…”

“No, no! Wait-!” She flailed her arms around, scooting herself closer to were Maki was lying, before looking carefully at the stars, desperately trying to think of something interesting to say. This was her chance. “Yeah, uh, yeah. Stars- I like stars. They’re pretty.”

Good enough, Kaede thought, staring intently at Maki as she waited for a response.

Maki shifted to the left, away from Kaede, staying silent. Her eyes were still stuck on the sky, foggy despite the natural brightness of the stars. The night really was lovely, despite the cold. It made Kaede wonder why she had never gone camping before. Shuichi said he’d gone once with his uncle, but that had been when he was thirteen so he hadn’t remembered much when she’d found out about it. They had been studying for midterms in their final year of high school. She had wanted to go camping with him, even though he didn’t like bugs very much. He said they would, once they graduated.

(they never did end up doing that. actually, now that kaede thought about it, she never did actually graduate. but that train of thought was pretty sad, so it was best not to ruminate on it too much)

She missed Shuichi a lot.

But! Maki was right there next to her, so there was no point in thinking about someone else. No, there wasn’t a point to it at all. Honestly, she was thinking about Shuichi too much these days…

“I had a friend who liked space… a lot.” Maki broke off Kaede’s thoughts with her quiet words, eyes still transfixed on the sky. “He used to drag me around to nearby hills all the time just so we could look at the same old stars at different angles. He was weird… and annoying.”

Maki had said her piece- closing her eyes as if she was finally comfortable. Kaede could hear the words that she hadn’t said. The silent murmuring of  _ ‘I miss him’ _ that chilled throughout her bones- like she’d found a secret passage that hadn’t been opened in a very, very long time. She was good with people like that.

She opened her mouth to say something. Some strong, optimistic words that were so  _ her _ . She did it as a first instinct. A reaction. Say something good. Push her new friend (because they were definitely that, no matter what maki said) forward. However, she Kaede faltered, stuttering on her tongue in the fear that Maki wouldn’t react well to empty words, no matter how heartfelt they were.

So, instead, she said, “I miss a lot too.” Shuichi, her parents, her sister, her  _ life _ . Being able to say five letters without stuttering and shaking. She didn’t want to be outside in the cold anymore- Kaede wanted to go home. She couldn’t do that though. In the end, she couldn’t do anything.

Maki hummed, quiet and weirdly peaceful, her eyes still closed (though kaede trusted her not to fall asleep, not while she was on watch). The wind picked up, just for a second, before it slowed down again. Wavering.

And Kaede knew, deep, deep inside her heart, that they should stick together. She had a feeling Maki knew it too.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyways, this series is literally the only thing I can bring myself to write these days, so I guess it's an official series now. Everything's probably going to be posted out of order though, but I'll organize the oneshots according to the very loose timeline. This set around 4-5 months after the zombie apocalypse started, while winter blues is set around 1-2 years after (I forgot the exact time lol).
> 
> I'm pretty sure that the next one I'll be writing will be around a month after the inciting incident and it'll follow our boy Shuichi. Too bad it'll take a long time to write because it's going to have more than two characters in it...
> 
> I swear though, don't expect too much out of me.


End file.
